


Lights Will Guide You Home

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, i don't even know what tags are anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1752851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn shrugs, tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling of the tiny café. “I’m practically homeless.” He says it in that easy tone of voice that Liam would later realize only Zayn could manage and a little later than that, Liam would also learn that Zayn wasn’t just teasing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Will Guide You Home

**AND THE CITY MAKES US CRAZY**

“I wanna get out of here,” he says the moment Liam sits down in front of him. It’s a window seat near the back of the café where they’d agreed to meet.

“I can’t be that horrible at first dates, can I?” Liam replies, stuck in a precipice of disbelief. “Can you at least give me a half an hour before you decide to run off?”

And Zayn laughs, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and his voice is a bit monotone when he says “Haha, you’re funny, aren’t you?” It’s a few seconds before he’s smiling and this time his eyes sparkle – just for a moment – and Liam thinks it’s the strangest thing. But he likes it.

*

“You’re a little nomad, aren’t you?” Liam asks later on after Zayn has shared a bit of himself; given Liam a taste of his dreams. He was feeling light and happy because at least now he knew that it wasn’t him Zayn was trying to run away from.

Zayn shrugs, tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling of the tiny café. “I’m practically homeless.” He says it in that easy tone of voice that Liam would later realize only Zayn could manage and a little later than that, Liam would also learn that Zayn wasn’t just teasing.

 

**TO FIGHT FOR YOU; IT’S ALL I’VE EVER KNOWN**

Everything had gone back to normal. Maybe he’d tried to get it off of Liam’s mind or maybe Liam had tried to change his, but neither of them had succeeded. That was normalcy for Zayn.

“You like cocoa puffs more than cornflakes, right?” He asks, holding up the two boxes of cereal and rattling them around just to hear the cereal panic inside.

“Who likes corn flakes anyways?” Liam answers even if it wasn’t a real answer at all. The end is right there, Liam can feel it, and it all feels so goddamned powerless.

“Cocoa puffs it is,” Zayn says and tosses the box into the cart. Behind them, several boxes fall to the ground in a scuffle between them and a little boy who is trying to pick one off the shelf.

“Here you go,” Zayn says, reaching out and taking the one the little boy had been trying to get to before his agitated sniffles turn to cries. He places the fallen boxes to the shelf, eyes still on the boy. He couldn’t have been more than two.

“You want kids someday?” Zayn asks, staring fondly at the boy as he runs back toward his parents.

And Liam thinks _“Only with you”_ but doesn’t dare say it out loud. He opts to shrugging his shoulders instead and saying “I don’t know.”

“I used to think I didn’t, but now I think I might,” Zayn says and Liam wonders if he’s doing it on purpose; if Zayn is really that heartless.

“What if you’re no good at it?”

The thing is, Liam wants the dream. The little house and the picket fence and the dog. He wants kids running around the house and breaking things and leaving messes. He wants bills scattered across the kitchen table and family game nights and hot dinners eaten together at a dining room table. It wouldn’t always be a happy dream, but he kind of wanted it with Zayn and it killed Liam to realize that Zayn was already thinking of a future without him in it.

“No good at what?” Zayn asks.

“Raising kids.”

And Zayn doesn’t even look at him, just keeps his eyes on the little boy holding the cereal box near the end of the isle.

“Then I’ll find someone who is.”

And it’s a lovely bullseye to the chest if Liam has ever seen one. And maybe he deserved it.

 

**AND IF THE THINGS I WANT MAKE YOU SAD**

“The city is nearing its expiration date,” Zayn says as they lie in bed, too lazy to even bother with lighting up an after sex cigarette.

“It’s a little early for doomsday theories,” Liam replies around a yawn, sitting up so he can attempt to untangle the sheets.

“What if I want to talk?” There’s a sharp edge to Zayn’s voice that nearly cuts Liam’s post coital haze in half.

“So talk,” Liam answers. He feels nervous, but he tries to hide it; knows this is something he needs to listen to.

“I just need to get away is all,” Zayn says in a tone so light that Liam nearly misses its heavy implications.

“From what?”

“Just… everything.”

“Me?”

And Liam swallows the bitter coin of sadness down so that it gets stuck in his throat. Holds it tight so maybe Zayn won’t see.

“When did I say that?” Zayn asks (and Liam thinks _you didn’t have to_ ). It’s a bit wondering and a bit more accusing. “Forget it. I only wanted to talk.”

There’s a beat of silence and then two and then Liam is chimes in “You can tell me anything, you know.” It sounds desperate and he isn’t even trying.

“No,” Zayn replies. “No, Liam. I can’t.” He smiles when he says it and for once Liam doesn’t even know what it means. “Go to sleep.”

Zayn must have known how impossible sleep would be for Liam after that conversation, but only a few minutes later Liam could hear his soft snores permeating the silence and he figured he was probably wrong about that too.

 

**I’D RATHER WASTE SOME TIME WITH YOU**

Liam walks Zayn back to his apartment. They feel aimless like those ancient wanderers only a bit different because they’d had the option of taking a cab. Liam had opted not to though, even when Zayn had offered to pay, because Liam didn’t want to go home yet. With his hands shoved deep into his pockets and not even clasped in prayer, he wished he could make time move in slow motion.

“You have work now don’t you?” Zayn asks as a delivery boy zooms past, trying to beat the clock. “You mentioned something about a graveyard shift.”

“I figured I’d take the day, or the night, off,” Liam answers with a shrug. He’d already accepted that he’d get reprimanded for it. Somehow, though, Zayn just seemed like he’d be worth it. “What can I say? You kinda wear me out.”

“Well,” Zayn replies. “If you get laid off, you should give me a call.” His smile is teasing and Liam really should have expected it. “Maybe I could hire you as my maid.”

“Do I have to wear a little apron?” And it’s so easy, Liam thinks. It was all so easy with Zayn.

“Only if you want to.” It’s like Zayn is reading his mind, wrapping Liam around his finger without even trying. “And I think you do.”

 

**AND YOU GIVE YOURSELF TO A LOVE THAT CONQUERS**

“I smell… cupcakes,” Zayn says. They’re standing with their backs to a bakery and their eyes closed and trying to guess what’s inside.

“Yeah? Well, what’s in them?” Liam asks. All he can register is the sweetness from both the bread and Zayn’s hair.

“Frosting.” It’s one of those rare times where Liam can sense the grin in Zayn’s voice. He’d grown so used to the monotone, but the joy right now feels so clear and Liam can hear it and it’s such a welcome surprise.

“Obviously,” Liam replies absently, baked goods the farthest thing from his mind. He just wants to hear more of that smile in Zayn’s voice. “What else?”

“Food coloring,” Zayn says and when Liam peeks he can see Zayn’s face scrunched up in concentration. He commits it to memory, Zayn’s face like a rosebud just about ready to bloom. “It smells pink.”

They turn around and, sure enough, there are nothing but an array of pink cupcakes in the display window; remnants from Valentine’s Day. Liam hadn’t even noticed that it had passed the way he would have in previous years. It was almost like a reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore.

“I love you,” Liam says a moment later with the air smelling like fresh bread. And Zayn kisses him, lips like frosting and he takes that as Zayn saying “I love you, too.”

 

**YOU ARE THE BEST ONE OF THE BEST ONES**

It couldn’t get any better than this moment when they’re sitting on the couch in Liam’s apartment (the one he suspects was present during both world wars) on opposite sides. It’s not because of a lack of a desire to be closer, Liam just didn’t want Zayn stealing any of his dumplings and Zayn was very particular about Liam partaking in his noodles.

Staying inside on a Friday night eating Chinese takeout in a hole-in-the-wall no better than the hole-in-the wall they’d bought it from and Liam is perfectly content.

Liam sets his takeout box down, snapping his chopsticks in half just because he likes the noise.

“You have a little rice over there,” Zayn say, still picking at his leftovers.

Liam lifts his hand to his mouth and wipes. “Did I get it?” He keeps rubbing at the same spot, but comes away with nothing.

“No,” Zayn says, putting his box own and leaning over with his hand on Liam’s shoulder. His mouth is right there. “Let me.”

They’d never kissed before then. Liam had been waiting, but he could have waited a vampire’s lifetime for a kiss like that. It was like Zayn had taken his soul right out him, and thrown it amongst the stars. It wasn’t gentle, but it felt like a goddamned supernova.

 

**AND WE’RE EVERYTHING WE’LL EVER NEED**

“You said it yourself,” Zayn says as the noises of the train station provide a nice static to the call. “I’m a nomad.”

“And you said you loved me.” Liam’s voice is flat and he knows it’s a lie, but he’s testing Zayn to see if he’d remember that he’d never actually said it back.

“So what?” Zayn asks.

And he fails.

Liam doesn’t know why he’d never believed him at first when Zayn had left him that message. He knew Zayn well enough, as short as their time had been. Liam dropped by his apartment that afternoon to have Zayn’s landlord tell him that he was gone, to find that Zayn had packed up all his things in that one little suitcase that he owned; to look for the pieces of himself that might have run off with him.

They must have sneaked into Zayn’s suitcase, the little bastards. And Liam will never get them back.

“I’ll miss you,” Liam says, fighting, only now it’s a little too late. “I need you.”

“More than I ever needed you,” Zayn says with a voice so dead with regret.

“You could be happy.” Liam is begging now, and it’s almost pathetic the way he’s picturing the rush hour crowd, train tracks and round trips and tired people and a decision to stay or go.

“You could be too,” Zayn says and hangs up.

Liam imagines that he throws his phone into the trash before boarding a one-ticket ride out of a life Liam could have had, but only with him. Liam shouldn’t have expected anymore more from something born out of a graveyard.

 

**AND THE LIGHT ALWAYS CHANGES WHEN YOU’RE IN THE ROOM**

The sky was God’s patio that day, substituting a blue mug of coffee for a gray ounce of smoke. Liam feels like a cigarette himself, but he doesn’t think his father would have appreciated it. Granted, he wouldn’t have had much of an opinion on the matter either way since he was dead, but his grave marker was still doing a pretty good job of serving as a reminder.

Several headstones across from him is Zayn. God must have spilled some water over his table and it topples down on them like harpoons, wet but insubstantial, cold but just as piercing as a sword straight out of the fire. Liam’s umbrella is mint grin with frills dangling from the ends – he’d borrowed it from is sister – but it was an umbrella nonetheless. Something Zayn didn’t have, so he walks over and stills the downpour from him. Sort of.

Zayn turns to him and says “Excuse me?” And when Liam tells him that he was getting soaked, Zayn sort of grins and says “So what?”

 

**YOU AND YOU ALONE CAN BREAK MY FALL**

“I don’t believe you,” Liam tells him with a shake of his head, an exaggerated flourish and an exasperated smile.

“It’s true,” Zayn says in that way he has of dancing with the truth. “You can check the rest of the apartment.”

“I just – how can a person who isn’t really homeless, mind you, own just one suitcase?”

“I don’t know,” Zayn says, freefalling onto his bed which is really just a mattress with a sheet thrown over it. His cheeks are flushed and his stomach has to be cramping from all the giggling and Liam thinks he’s absolutely beautiful. “I guess I just don’t need that many things.”

“Who needs things anyways?” Liam asks, lying back with him, their arms brushing but not so much by accident.

“Nobody,” Zayn says and it was a very easy response. Something Liam may notice later, but hadn’t at the time.

“Yeah, nobody.” And Liam scoots a bit closer just because he can. “Anyway, I’m glad. It’ll be roomy in there when you steal me away on your next adventure.”

“You won’t fit if you keep eating all of those cupcakes,” Zayn says, teasing and poking a finger to Liam’s ribs; someplace ticklish.

Liam laughs, shifting away on instinct. “You’re the one who keeps buying them!” And then he rolls back over, pinning Zayn’s wrists to the bed, and taking his own turn at making him laugh.

And somehow, Liam knew even then that a part of him would always leave with Zayn. Some piece of himself would always be tucked away in that suitcase.


End file.
